Rhode Island teen busted in school sexting scandal after photos of high school girls end up on Russian porn site

A 16-year-old teen from Rhode Island allegedly operated an account online containing “sexually explicit” pictures of over 40 high school girls — and some of the pictures are now showing up on a Russian porn site.

The Burrillville teen, whose identity has not been revealed because he’s a minor, was taken into custody on Thursday on felony charges of possession of child porn and distributing child porn after a three-month probe, The Providence Journal reports.

He was permitted home confinement and has been ordered not to contact the girls whose pictures were discovered in a Dropbox account he ran and shared with friends.

The account, which has since been removed, had over 100 photos and videos of girls, some as young as 13-years-old, who attended Burrillville High School. An unknown number of photos also showed up on a Russian porn site, and “there’s not a damn thing we can do,” according to Police Colonel Stephen Lynch.

The account was made anonymously in February and many of girls whose images are on the account were underage when their pictures were taken

“None of these pictures took place on school grounds,” Lynch added. “All of them were in homes. To me, that’s where the problem started. Parents need to have the conversation of the impact.”

The pictures became “fodder for whoever could get their hands on them,” Lynch noted, adding that authorities identified 43 girls in all and interviewed each of them.

The girls were not sure who was managing the Dropbox account, but one teen boy ended up assisting police, Lynch reported. The boy who ran the account eventually admitted to authorities, although he was careful to try to hide his actions electronically.

Both criminal charges the teen is facing are “felonies and subject to sex offender registration,” a spokesperson for Rhode Island Attorney General Peter Kilmartin said. He’s scheduled for a pretrial conference on October 3rd.

Authorities are now planning a forum at Burrillville High School when school starts to remind students about the risks of “sexting.”

One former student said in an interview with the Providence Journal that habit of trading sexually explicit pictures at the school is not new. She said that she was a senior in 2012 when a friend of her sister admitted that her photos had appeared in “The Business” — the name that was given to the collection by students.